Search results

This study aims to incorporate innovative technology (i.e. blockchain) into the design of an online travel agency (B-OTA). The authors accelerated the design of the prototype system through expert interviews to understand the convenience of the blockchain travel and accommodation platform for users. The authors further validated the prototype system design and improved reference capability through usability testing.

Rapid prototyping of B-OTA was carried out through the Delphi method and literature compilation. Design validation of usability testing was conducted using modified systematic evaluation methodology. Prototype system suggestions and improvements were collected through feedback from test subjects.

This study will be helpful for the development of B-OTAs and related technologies. Through usability testing, the authors verified that creating a familiar operating environment for users can reduce users’ fear of unfamiliar technology. The results of this research provide future B-OTA researchers and practitioners with design guidelines.

Beyond the blockchain-related technologies used, few studies have reported experiences and interface design of B-OTAs. This study states that, as many human–computer interaction-related papers have pointed out, the basic prerequisite for successful interface design is a clearer definition of users’ needs during operation. User experience and user interface design should provide a good user experience.

本研究旨在在线旅行社 (B-OTA) 的设计中融入创新技术（即区块链）。通过专家访谈了解了区块链旅行的方便性和用户打造的住宿平台, 从而加快了原型系统设计。我们进一步通过可用性测试验证原型系统设计并提高其参考能力。

进行了 B-OTA 的快速原型设计通过德尔菲法和文献汇编。设计验证可用性测试是使用修改后的系统评估进行的方法。通过收集受试者的建议对原型系统进行改进。

本研究将有助于B-OTAs及相关领域的发展技术。通过可用性测试, 我们验证了创建一个熟悉的用户的操作环境可以减少用户对陌生技术的恐惧。我们的研究结果为未来的 B-OTA 研究人员和从业者提供了设计相关的指南。

除了使用的区块链相关技术之外, 很少有研究报告了 B-OTA 的经验和界面设计。这项研究指出, 正如许多 HCI 相关论文所指出的, 成功的界面设计基本的先决条件是在使用过程中更清晰地定义用户需求。用户体验和用户界面设计应该提供良好的用户体验。

The purpose of this paper is to introduce and explore blockchain technology and its potential implementation to hospitality and tourism firms’ wide range of business operations and transactions from a technological and functional point of view. This study’s central interest is to produce novel and rigorous in-depth-review analysis and foundations for a broad discussion and outlook on the potential applications of blockchain technology benefiting hospitality and tourism research, as well as the industry as a whole.

This study identifies and proposes several potential areas of the adoption and implementation of blockchain technology to the hospitality and tourism industry, including payment and cryptocurrencies, tracking and service customization, the disintermediation of hospitality and tourism, innovative loyalty programs, smart contracts, integrated property management systems, verified rating and review systems, collaborative initiatives and due diligence and smart tourism, each of which represents fertile avenues for future research.

This paper provides extensive critical discussions, reviews and answers to a fundamental question: “What critical functions of Blockchain mechanisms can be implemented to the existing core operational (i.e. booking and reservation systems, guest management, etc.) and business functions (i.e. loyalty/reward programs, agent transactions, etc.) of hospitality and tourism companies?”.

Future studies should specifically delve further into various angles of this “BizTech” environment based not only on business operations and competition but also on vendor and customer collaboration.

This study intends to serve as a guidance for future research, facilitate knowledge accumulation and create a new understanding and awareness in both practice and academia. One of the most important applications of blockchain in this industry would be that pertaining to direct booking, online reservation systems (i.e. airlines and online travel agencies) and check-in/out with digital identities. With industry-wide blockchain adoption, guests’ personal information can be digitally validated, saved and secured as previously established cryptographically secured codes verify one’s identity without disclosing essential personal information.

It is obvious that the hospitality and tourism industry needs urgent technological transformation, industrial innovations and new growth avenues such as the adoption of blockchain technology and systems to maintain its global market share in the future. Therefore, the implementation of blockchain systems can promote the formation of multi-center (i.e. guest operations and customer service), weakly intermediated (i.e. loyalty programs and/or review and rating systems) areas in this industry.

Purpose: The purpose of this chapter is to explore the current usage of robots, artificial intelligence and service automation in travel agencies (TA) and tourist information centres (TIC), and to provide insights about the future deployment of those technologies in the operations of travel agencies and tourist information centres

Design/methodology/approach: The chapter makes a review of travel agencies’ operations in the context of tourist consumer behaviour and then explores the current technologies utilized by TAs and TICs. There are forecasts about the future development of technologies in the TAs, discussing emerging issues and challenges, and final implications with concluding thoughts.

Findings: TA and TIC have incorporated a lot of automated technologies in their operations by numerous software applications; AI is still to proliferate and further excel, and the whole customer interaction tends to take place almost entirely in the digital space.

Research implications: TAs will continue to develop B2C or B2B software to increase their distribution efficiency and footprint through powerful computing capabilities, user-friendly systems, transparency, low fault rate, ease of search and real-time confirmation; virtual and augmented realities will become a standard. Back office tedious tasks and processes will be eliminated by the right software, which will further reduce the paper flow, increase cost-effectiveness and leverage the human involvement in the ordinary procedures of filing, reporting, administering, and analysing data

Social implications: The advance of technologies has certainly empowered the end customers, making them not only informed, but also more engaged. Consequently, the future technological development in TAs operation will focus on higher personalization, but at the expense of higher standardization of technologies.

Originality/value: TAs have certainly embraced technology integration as the only pathway to remain competitive and viable. The future development of RAISA in TAs seem to progress to full automation and AI integration where appropriate. The most challenging obstacles connected with technology introduction in TAs seem to be legal regulations, personal data protection, security issues and technical compatibility, but also moral issues like ethics and cultural understanding.

Blockchain is a disruptive technology enabling distributed, encrypted, smart and secure peer-to-peer transactions. The fragmented nature of the tourism industry with a high number of contracts and transactions between several parties has security issues, disputes and delay. Although these motivate the use of blockchain, scholars have barely begun to systematically assess the value proposition of blockchain in the hospitality and tourism industry. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impacts, opportunities and challenges of blockchain in the tourism and hospitality sector. The authors present early use cases of blockchain in the tourism industry.

The authors conducted a multiple case-study approach and grounded this study based on the technology acceptance management literature with context-specific variables that are pivotal to the study of this topic.

This paper outlines the useful features of blockchain in the tourism industry in seven major streams and raises four future research questions. This review will enable hypotheses to be set out for consumers and producers involved in tourism to uncover potential motives and barriers to embracing blockchain.

Blockchain is a relatively new technology, and given that all use cases are limited to the proof of concept and have not been fully adopted by the industry, empirical assessment of case studies is not feasible yet.

As blockchain is becoming more known and used in the tourism industry, there is a need to identify challenges, issues and concerns relevant for this industry moving forward. This paper fulfils this need and provides directions for future research.

区块链是一种颠覆性技术, 使P2P交易分布化、加密化、智能化、以及安全化。旅游业分散的属性, 不同群体之间有着很多频繁的合同和交易, 使得其行业有着安全隐患、争论、以及延迟。这些属性都促使其使用区块链技术, 然而学者们还未曾系统化地审视区块链在酒店和旅游业中的具体价值。本论文旨在分析旅游和酒店产业中的区块链影响、机会和挑战。我们展示了旅游业早期使用的区块链案例进行说明。

我们采用多个案例分析的方式, 以及将我们的分析基于技术接受管理文献, 以及审视一些针对我们的研究课题至关重要的具体背景下的多个变量。

研究结果展示了区块链技术在旅游行业中的7大主要分支, 以及提出了针对未来研究的问题。本论文还提出了针对旅游消费者和提供商家的多个假设, 以揭示采用区块链的潜在动机和障碍。

区块链是相对较新的技术, 由于所有案例都局限于概念层面, 并未完全被产业所采纳, 针对案例的实际分析尚未可能。

由于区块链正在被旅游市场渐渐熟知和使用, 对其的挑战、潜在问题、以及考量等的认知, 将有利于产业的推进。本论文正是应市场需求而生的, 对未来研究有着启示作用。

Blockchain technology is predicted to revolutionize the tourism and hospitality industry through peer-to-peer hotel bookings with little or no involvement of intermediaries. Outstanding features of this technology are its distributed form of storing data, its collaborative way of identifying the “true state” of a system and the immutability of data. These features may lead to a perceived loss of controllability among travelers. Based on the Agentic Theory of Human Behavior, the purpose of this study is to propose that this assumed loss of control matters more to travelers with an individualistic rather than a collectivistic predisposition.

In two studies (n = 475 and n = 196) using verbal scenarios, this study manipulates the perceived controllability of a blockchain-enabled hotel booking app by varying the number of additional services linked to the app. This study tests for the interaction of controllability with individual-level measures of individualistic versus collectivistic (I-C) predisposition.

Collectivistic travelers are more willing than individualistic travelers to use blockchain technology for their hotel bookings. This effect can be mitigated by offering additional services that give individualistic travelers an enhanced sense of “being in control”.

Blockchain-enabled applications facilitating direct hotel bookings without any additional intermediary services are more readily accepted by travelers with a collectivistic mindset. Blockchain applications addressing individualistic travelers require added services that establish a sense of controllability.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to investigate the interaction of I-C predisposition with perceived controllability in tourism and hospitality. Furthermore, it is the first in the technology-acceptance literature to test this interaction using individual-level measures of I-C predisposition and an experimental manipulation of perceived controllability.

预计区块链技术将通过点对点酒店预订彻底改变旅游业和酒店业, 而中介机构很少或根本不参与。该技术的突出特点是其存储数据的分布式形式、识别系统“真实状态”的协作方式以及数据的不变性。这些特征可能会导致旅行者感觉失控。基于人类行为的代理理论, 我们提出这种假设的失控对具有个人主义而非集体主义倾向的旅行者更重要。

在两项使用口头场景的研究（n = 475 和 n = 196）中, 我们通过改变与应用程序链接的附加服务的数量来操纵支持区块链的酒店预订应用程序的感知可控性。我们测试了可控性与个人主义与集体主义 (I-C) 倾向的个体水平测量的相互作用。

集体主义旅行者比个人主义旅行者更愿意使用区块链技术进行酒店预订。这种影响可以通过提供额外的服务来减轻个人主义旅行者增强了“掌控感”。

本文首次研究了旅游和酒店业中 I-C 倾向与感知可控性的相互作用。此外, 它是技术接受文献中第一个使用 I-C 倾向的个体水平测量和感知可控性的实验操作来测试这种相互作用。

研究建议具有集体主义心态的旅行者更容易接受支持区块链的应用程序, 无需任何额外的中介服务即可直接预订酒店。针对个性化旅行者的区块链应用程序需要额外的服务来建立可控感。

区块链, 、文化, 、个人主义, 、集体主义, 、自我建构, 、技术接受, 、可控性, 、人类行为的代理理论

This paper aims to provide a general introduction to Blockchain technology and how it can be used within the global hospitality industry. In particular, this paper speaks to three industry sectors where Blockchain technology is currently in use.

This paper draws on the perspective of an academic who also continues to serve as an industry practitioner within the field of hospitality technology. To this end, the paper provides several examples as to how Blockchain technology can be used to further advance the hospitality profession within a number of different industry sectors.

Blockchain technology is being used now within the hospitality industry for both practical and strategic purposes. It can be used in most sectors of the profession and will continue to be used within the hospitality industry for many years ahead. The technology is still relatively new and will continue to become more advanced and sophisticated with the passage of time.

Many hospitality industry examples are provided as to how Blockchain technology can be used to improve operational effectiveness, efficiencies and overall profitability.

This paper adds value and contributes to the literature relating to Blockchain technology applications in the international hospitality industry. It represents current and future use that can and should be taken into consideration by both the hospitality industry and academia.

Technological innovations provide huge opportunities to expand and revolutionize the scope of products and services offered. This is particularly true for tourism, which is undergoing significant changes due to the development of new technologies. The level of technology diffusion depends on several factors like the exchange of information among peers, and the attitude and shared perception among the contributors. The aim of the study is to explore the diffusion of technology in tourism with a specific focus on the social media discourse around new technologies. Thus, the paper investigates the level of interest in these new technologies analysing the information exchange occurring between individuals on Twitter in order to explore the influence of reciprocal networking.

To capture the attitudes expressed in the industry, the study analyses the ongoing discourse on Twitter as a proxy for the participants “interest in new technologies. Through a social network analysis of the tweets and retweets conducted over a period of nine months, the research maps the level of information exchange about the diffusion of new technologies. Moreover, the sentiment analysis provides an interesting overview of the individuals” attitudes towards the awareness or the adoption of new technologies.

Our analysis has provided several insights: (1) the information network on blockchain in tourism consists of participants who change very quickly over time (high turnover of accounts); (2) some contributors have an extremely important role in influencing the flow of information in the system (information centralization), they can have a generalist (discussing several topics) or a specialist (focusing on a specific topic) behaviour and this strategic choice influences their network's structure; (3) these central nodes also have an impact on the definition of positive and negative sentiment towards a topic (sentiment influencer).

The paper contributes to the literature on technology diffusion, by focusing on one of the preconditions of diffusion that is the shared positive attitude towards technological innovation. More specifically, we adopt a network-based approach, which is useful to explain the level of information exchange and the public discourse that can impact the shared perception and attitude towards technological innovation. The study also highlights the role of knowledge brokers in influencing this public discourse. Future studies can deepen the association between positive perception, higher levels of information exchange and increasing usage of specific technologies. Our results also suggest further exploring the opportunity to combine social media data and other sources of information to shed more light on the technological innovation diffusion processes.

This paper shows how practitioners can benefit from the analysis of information exchange about new technologies in tourism adopting a network perspective with the aim of understanding the level of influence among contributors. Moreover, the increasing interest in blockchain technology and the potential combination between social media data and other sources of information can offer promising insights.

The present study explores the level of technology diffusion through the analysis of information exchange on social media (Twitter). Furthermore, the dynamics of individual user behaviour offers a better understanding about media effects.

While previous research is focused on the users' perception towards the development of new technologies in tourism, the aim of this study is to investigate the dynamics behind the level of diffusion of information and awareness about these new technologies, which still represents an unexplored area of research.

Digitalization, financial technologies and the internet have rapidly advanced the business ecosystem posing a disruptive threat to how operations are fundamentally performed. Global hospitality and tourism companies face this challenge and have been early adopters in this field. This study aims to examine the role of blockchain technology in strengthening the marketing mix (product, price, place and promotion) and the its related impacts on the tourism industry.

This research adopts a systematic literature review approach to synthesize and assess the literature published on blockchain in tourism and tends to build a conceptual framework that depicts the relationships between different constructs.

The results show a lot of interest in using blockchain technology due to numerous advantages to tourism industry. This innovative technology can change this sector radically; assist small economies in strengthening and transitioning to the level of developed economies; and assist tourism companies in eliminating corruption, establishing a secure network and promoting equality between small and large entities.

Through industry examples demonstrating real-life use cases such as startups operating on the application of blockchain in tourism, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is a first attempt to draw the impact of blockchain technology on product, price, place, promotion (4Ps) in tourism sector. The proposed nine relationships can facilitate the future researchers in advancing the state-of-art on how blockchain-based technologies can shape the customers experience through promoting confidentiality, co-creation and effective destination planning.